


All You Leave Behind

by Elpie (Horribibble)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Detective Cullen, Ghost In The Machine, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4974901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horribibble/pseuds/Elpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Cullen Rutherford has never trusted synthetics, but after an unfortunate incident costs him his arm, his world becomes more complex. His partner, Felix, is almost human. </p><p>Dorian Pavus is a genius with synthetics, an import from Tevinter who has made leaps and bounds in the field, especially impressive for a man so young. His secrets are more than just ghosts in the machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unmade

**Author's Note:**

> You might notice some elements from Almost Human in here. I've seen a few episodes, and some things have definitely bled over. 
> 
> I promise you a happy ending, just bear with me.

Cullen wakes to a blank white ceiling, a hollow ringing in his ears, and a whole lot of nothing where before there was an arm.  _ Maker,  _ He thinks. He has been unmade. 

He shuts his eyes tight again, squeezes until bright stinging colors melt together in the dark place between eye and lid. He hears more now, is able to process more information. He is breathing air that smells and tastes like hospital. 

The heart monitor is beeping at a fairly steady rate. He is not panicking. This was a risk. He always knew this was a risk. Now it’s a reality instead. He can hear someone crying in the hallway, too. Probably his mother. 

And then…

“ _ You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”  _

“Haven’t he-eard--” Cullen tries to speak, but the dryness in his throat scrapes against his voice, stinging and forcing a coughing fit down into his chest and out to his shoulders. He feels something cold against his lips--an ice chip--and he slowly opens his eyes. 

The face above his is not traditionally handsome. The eyes are a bit too sunken, too strange, though the rest of the man’s features are open and soft. His dark hair is cropped close to his head, and his full, smiling lips are framed by stubble. He seems accessible. But the eyes…

There’s a flicker of unnatural light, and Cullen realizes that this isn’t a human being at all. 

“You’ll need to suck on that a bit first, I’m afraid.”

But it can’t be afraid. Synthetics don’t feel fear.

-

Its name is Felix, it tells him. 

That’s all well and good. 

It’s when his boss repeats that information that the problems begin. Cassandra speaks to it like any other detective on the force, if more freely. She touches his shoulder as if steadying him, but synthetics don’t get  _ nervous.  _

His name is Felix, she tells him. He is to be Cullen’s new partner. 

-

Felix does not sleep; he recharges.

Felix does not eat, but he can pretend to, if it makes Cullen feel better. 

He has a habit of behaving in ways that he assumes will make Cullen feel better. 

Cullen just wants to know who taught him act so deceptively human, even as he runs his scans and detects everything from heart rate--  _ I’m afraid he’s telling the truth-- _ to the exact trace of Lyrium remaining in his system. 

Cullen nearly takes off the bot’s hands the first time it attempts to apply heat to his throbbing temples. They are not friends. Cullen would rather interrogate suspects with a can opener.

At least it wouldn’t be programmed to judge him.  

-

Sometimes Felix coughs, which is funny, because synthetics don’t get sick. 

Every time, he stops short and smiles a sad little smile. 

He catches Cullen’s eye, but doesn’t mention the staring. 

“Force of habit.” He says, once.

Who the fuck programs a synthetic to  _ cough _ ?

 


	2. Renewed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian, Cole, and the human soul.

The answer is simple : Dorian Pavus.

Cullen has heard the name before, if only by word of mouth, rumors and whispers. No one is comfortable around Dorian Pavus, but they all want something from him.

 _A heretic,_ They say, _a fucking ‘Vint with an attitude, and no patience for flesh and blood._

 _A_ _**mage** _ _, an unrepentant mage. Perhaps a technomancer of some sort._

_Married to his work. Literally. He has to be fucking those bots he cooks up._

None of them mention how beautiful Dorian is, or how delicate his touch.

-

His first glimpse of Dorian’s workshop is dented and dark at the edges, struggling to keep his insides on the inside as Felix guides him with careful hands and a steady voice. But the synthetic _looks_ concerned. Remarkable work the man did with this one.

“ _Dorian_!” Felix shouts. Not _sir_ or _master_ or any of the titles synthetics usually employ for their creators. “Dorian, _fuck!”_

“Felix?” There’s a rattle from down below somewhere. Cullen can’t see. But the accent is also Tevene, and Cullen hisses in equal parts annoyance and pain.

“I told you to take me to the _hospital_.” He grits out.

“Fat lot of good that’d do you with your prosthetic pumping that red shit into your bloodstream.”

Red shit. Red _lyrium._

They’ve stepped in it, now.

Felix carries him down the steps, manhandling him like a particularly ornery child, but Cullen doesn’t fight him. He’s in pain, and his entire body feels wrong, like salt and burning on the inside. If the bot weren’t holding him so carefully, he’d tear his own skull open just to make the metallic singing stop.

He stares up at a ceiling wreathed in lights both artificial and magical, visited here and there by _butterflies_ of all things. And then, hovering over him, there’s Dorian Pavus and his ridiculous moustache.

“Well, look at you.” He says, “Felix’s first stray.”

“Fuck off.” Cullen grunts.

“I’d welcome your assistance there, I think. Handsome man like you. But for now…”

Cullen feels the prick of the needle against the inside of his flesh arm, and he doesn’t have time to struggle.

“Sleep. You’ll need it.”

There is weightlessness and wakefulness and the place between, where a pair of soft lips brush against his forehead.

And there is _sunshine, you are my sunshine, you make me ha-ppy…_

_-_

He wakes to voices arguing in the distance and yet _another_ strange face hovering over his own. Wispy blond bangs hang over an abnormally large pair of eyes, overshadowed again by a truly ridiculous wide-brimmed hat.

“Good morning.” The man says.

“Morning?”

“That is what you say to people when they wake up, even if you don’t mean it. But I mean it. I’m glad you’re awake, so I’ve said good morning.”

“Oh.” Cullen frowns, his head, still full of cotton, now padded out with words. “Good morning.”

“It’s not morning.”

“But you said--”

“You woke up. Not me. It’s afternoon, and I have been awake. So you say--”

“Good afternoon.”

“Yes.” The man’s wide mouth slides into an oddly endearing smile. “ _Thank you._ It is that. Dorian says that you’ll live, and also that you’re an idiot, which is mean. But he says mean things when he is frustrated or concerned or sad or lonely. He does not mean them, Felix says.”

“Where is Felix?”

“Yelling at Dorian, who is yelling back. They’re very loud. Can you not hear them?”

Cullen can. He’d have to be deaf not to.

“Felix was very worried, but Dorian does good work.” His voice changes abruptly, the syllables precise and the accent posh Tevene. “ _He won’t appreciate it, of course. Stubborn man. But at least it’ll serve him better than that old piece of shit he’s been struggling with.”_

“What old piece of--” Cullen levers himself up, ignoring the muzzy clouds in his head, and realizes that, for once, it doesn’t _hurt._ He glances down at his prosthetic arm and sees--he sees _flesh_ , which isn’t right at all. “What the--”

“An upgrade.” Dorian’s voice is a haughty growl as he strides onto the platform, the metal clanking under quick, striking footsteps. “Free of charge. You’re _welcome._ ”

Felix follows, looking far more abashed. “Good afternoon, Cullen.”

Cole frowns, opening his mouth to argue, but apparently thinks better of it when Dorian makes a soft hissing noise.

This is all completely ridiculous.

“What happened to my prosthetic?”

“It was corrupted. Impressive, really, that they managed to infiltrate such primitive technology. You’d think the brass would outfit their boys with better toys.” Dorian perches on a high, rolling chair and wheels his way over to Cullen’s side.

“They _hacked_ my fucking _limb_?”

“Mm.” Dorian nods. “A rather unfortunate risk of the game. It was killing you, so Felix ran diagnostics and _every semblance of common sense in his pretty little head_ to bring you to me.”

“And you just, what, took off my arm? Replaced it with this…” Cullen lifts the new prosthetic, which responds promptly and seamlessly. It looks exactly like his organic limb, and the anxious pit in his stomach roils at the sight. He can’t resist lifting his flesh fingers to run over the unmarked flesh, but stops short at the feeling of a raised mark.

A serpent. There’s a raised serpent brand coiled about his arm.

“A maker’s mark.” Dorian explains, unprompted. “And yes, I had the gall to save your life _and_ improve it.”

“What happened to the old one?”

“It was rather inextricably fucked. You can’t honestly tell me you prefer that red acid taking over your body. You’re already working off the regular shit.”

Cullen tenses, eyes flying to Felix, who has the nerve to look concerned by his distress. “You told him.”

“It was relevant information.”

“Don’t pretend to be a functional machine _now_ , you useless hunk of metal. I didn’t want _you_ to have that piece of information!”

Cullen thinks he must be hallucinating, because Felix actually looks like he might be _ill,_ but he grabs Dorian’s shoulder to stop him from lunging anyway.

“You ignorant little piss--”

“That’s not nice.” Cole interrupts. “That’s not nice at all. You’ve hurt Felix’s feelings.”

“Machines don’t _feel_. They don’t have _souls_.”

“That’s not true.” The boy frowns. “Dorian worked very hard to carry us through the Fade.”

“... _What?”_  


	3. An Exchange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian Pavus does not give a shit about the laws of nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the slow updates. 
> 
> There's a bit more than this written, but I'm trying to figure out how to flesh the story out.   
> I'm so bad at action jfc.

Dorian Pavus has gone beyond necromancy. He has literally  _ taken a human soul  _ and inserted it into a mechanical shell. 

But it’s not against the law. 

There  _ are  _ no laws regulating this sort of thing. The advancements Dorian Pavus has made upon modern technology are both impressive and terrifying. He has the power to create artificial Abominations. 

Cullen’s quick to spit out as much, and Dorian is just as quick to punch him in the face. 

Cullen walks home. Felix has the keys. 

-

Including, apparently, a spare key to his apartment. 

Cullen wakes up again to a pounding headache, and a medalert from his prosthetic. Apparently, he’s running a fever. And his arm gives a shit. 

“I brought some soup for you.”

He manages not to jump clear out of his skin, but he’s not above swearing up a blue streak. “ _ Fuck,  _ Felix. Would it kill you to knock?”

Felix shakes his head, smiling as if Cullen’s a particularly stubborn child. “I was worried for you. Dorian flushed the worst of the stuff from your system, but he mentioned that there would still be symptoms.”

“So this thing tells me.” Cullen waves the new augment experimentally, still impressed with how much of a struggle it isn’t. 

“He didn’t mean to upset you. Which is odd, really. Upsetting people is a favorite pastime of Dorian’s.”

“I got that feeling.”

“But he’s a good person, just like you’re a good person.”

“He’s a fucking necromancer. No offense to you, but he’s violated the laws of nature.”

“Why would I be offended?”

Cullen frowns. “Because you’re…”

“A person?” Felix’s smile is softer now. “Your opinion changed, didn’t it? You’re thinking of me as a person.”

“I received new information.”

“That’s what life is: a continuous exchange of information.”

“So you...what? You died, and he just traipsed into the Fade and pulled you out?”

Felix sighs, “There’s a bit more to it than that. Dorian and I have known each other for a very long time. He was more a part of my family than his own. He studied under my father, you see, back in Tevinter.”

“Your father was involved with…?”

“Oh, no.  _ Time _ was my father’s eternal burden. Dorian’s too, at first. But where my father was consumed by the ticking of the clock, Dorian was taken by the gears that made it move. Without my mother there, we all fell apart too quickly for any of it to matter. But they tried.”

“They succeeded, didn’t they?”

“Perhaps.” Felix says. “It seems so. Cole assures us that I am, in fact, myself. But dying leaves a particular shadow on the soul. It fell over all of us. Dorian crossed a line he was never meant to, for me and for Cole.”

“So you’re not quite human and not quite machine.”

“A walking paradox. It’s all very fascinating, I understand. But it could get us in quite a bit of trouble.”

“Is that what you were arguing about? Whether to tell me or not?”

Felix nods. “You might think it’s foolish, but I trust you. You are my partner, after all.”

“My partner…”

“Cole thinks the sun shines out of your arse.”

“I think I need that soup, now.”

“Of course.” Felix grins and turns to disappear into Cullen’s tiny kitchen. “It’s your favorite. Chicken with stars.”

“How do you  _ know  _ that?”

“I was bullshitting. But that’s good to know.”

-

From the kitchen, the sound of Felix’s voice filters in hazy and warm. 

“ _ The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping… _ ”

Cullen’s eyes drift shut. He does not dream. 


End file.
